


I'll Go Down With You

by Ghostys



Category: RWBY
Genre: basically an alternate scenario where neo doesnt get blown off the ship, im sorry, so you probably shouldnt read this if you haven't watched that yet, spoilers for Volume 3 Chapter 11, things still go to shit though, this is basically me just writing sad stuff because its valentines day and i want to be sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:13:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6010576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostys/pseuds/Ghostys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her grip on Roman tightened as she felt the flames flickering closer towards her.</p>
<p>'If you’re going to go down, then I might as well go down with you.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Go Down With You

**Author's Note:**

> Its valentines day, so what better way to celebrate than by making everyone sad by killing characters.  
> Yeah so this is just a sad one-shot sort of thing I wrote, and it isn't really that shippy or anything, just sadness in general.  
> I apologize in advance if this is out of character or if there are any grammar mistakes, but I hope you enjoy this sad trash

She didn’t expect it to happen.

 

It was one of the things that Neo often prided herself on- the ability to dodge attacks, to escape fights unscathed. Injury wasn’t something she was used to.

 

That was why it took her by surprise.

 

Especially when the person dealing the blow was a single hand away from death. All the girl below her had to do was let go, and she would be sent plummeting to the ground. All Neo had to do was hit her. A single strike, and it’d be done. It was almost too easy, and she knew it. That was why she wanted to take her time. To savour the moment, to watch the fear on the younger girl’s face, to watch her realisation that it was all over.

 

But that didn’t happen.

 

She advanced, leaned over, taunting the girl with the sharpened end of her parasol, then felt pain explode inside of her.

 

Her leg buckled beneath her as a bullet from the end of the girl’s scythe ricocheted into her knee, a shout escaping her as she toppled over onto her side, and Ruby began to haul herself up the handle of her scythe and back onto the deck of the ship.

 

“Neo!” Roman’s shout splintered through the air as Neo crashed to the ground, the note of distress to his voice taking the girl by surprise as she lay there. She could tell that her Aura had protected her knee from being shattered by the bullet, but that didn’t stop it from hurting like hell when she tried to drag herself up into a sitting position, her leg, which was now dripping blood onto the cold grey of the top of the ship, scraping painfully across the ground.

 

As she arranged herself into a place that allowed her to see what was happening, Neo was taken by surprise at what she saw.

 

She had seen Roman angry before- mainly after plans went off course and she happened to be in the same area as him- but this was something different.

 

The man seemed enraged as he lunged towards Ruby, striking her to the ground within seconds, his voice raising to a shout as he attacked with reckless abandon, all composure lost as he raised his cane and brought it down on the girl over and over, shouting down at her between each strike, voice shaking and knuckles white with tension around his cane. He stepped back from the girl on the ground, voice still raised in pure fury, and held his weapon up one last time, as if to deal the finishing blow.

 

Neo saw the Grimm swooping in only seconds before it struck.

 

She tried desperately to warn Roman, but she didn’t even have time to open her mouth before the creature landed behind him, heavy feet thudding down onto the deck of the ship, jaws hinging open over him and slamming closed.

 

Snatching up her parasol and using it as a support, Neo dragged herself over in frantic movements to where the Grimm was beginning to take off once more, and latched onto it, hanging on and slicing out with the bladed end of her parasol. Her grip shook as the Grimm rose slowly into the air with laboured wingbeats, slowed down by the girl hanging onto it. The girl with the bi-coloured eyes felt herself losing her hold on the creature’s back as it shuddered away from the ship, rising into the air above the deck.

 

Her leg screaming in pain as she straddled the back of the Grimm, Neo raised her parasol in both hands, casting aside the laced part, leaving only the bladed handle in her hand, as she drove the sharp metal into the creature over and over with precise strikes, trying to regulate her breathing the best she could.

 

_He’s fine._

 

She attempted to assure herself.

 

_He’s always fine._

 

Stab.

 

_It’s okay._

 

Stab.

 

_He’s still alive._

 

Stab.

 

_He always makes it out alive._

 

Stab.

 

_Always._

 

Neo let out a scream of horror as the Grimm lurched in the air, the repetitive strikes evidently having an effect on it, and she lost her grip on it’s back. Her heart seemed to cease beating for a brief few moments as she fell, however, lashing out, she managed to latch onto the foot of the creature, now meters in the air above the deck of the ship. A fall from that height would in no way have killed her, but the thought of the Grimm getting away with Roman still inside of it caused her more panic than the prospect of falling to her death.

 

Neo let out a choking sob at the thought, and stabbed upwards, her arms shaking with the effort of holding onto the leg of the creature, a wrong move possessing the potential to send her falling back down to the ship, her grip loosening with every passing second.

 

Something that Neo wasn’t used to feeling was panic, yet when it hit her, it struck with the force of being thrown into a brick wall, causing her heart to jolt at an erratic pace and tears to gather in the corners of her eyes as her strikes grew more and more frantic with every passing second.

 

_You have to save him!_

 

She struck upwards into the Grimm over and over and over, hitting again and again with reckless abandon, her lack of precision and the sense of pure terror that filled her scaring her, tears now falling freely down her face as she hit the Grimm with strike after strike.

 

After what felt like an age, the creature fell.

 

It’s wingbeats faltered and shuddered to a halt, and it began to crumble away as it dropped through the air and crashed back onto the deck of the ship, which had already began to dip in the air, slowly sinking back down to the ground, a portion of its deck already consumed in flames. Neo knew she had limited time to get herself and Roman away before the ship hit the ground.

 

The rapidly dissolving corpse of the Grimm cushioned her impact as she fell on top of it then sprung out of the way, blood still oozing slowly out of the wound on her leg, the pain causing her stance to shake as she made her way back over to the Grimm and drove her parasol handle into it again, trying to speed up the process of it dissolving. Her breath guttered in her lungs as she did so, eyes stinging with tears that continued to fall even though she reminded herself that Roman was safe now that the Grimm was out of the air.

 

The Grimm dissolved, and Roman rolled out onto the top of the ship.

 

He looked to Neo almost as if he was sleeping, hat discarded next to his head, hair unruly and ruffled, lying still on the ground.

 

Neo made her way over to him, a weary smile forming on her face as she gripped the bladed end of the parasol in her hand, preparing to poke him in the side with the curved end, making a note to jeer at him about being lazy at a later date, when they were both off the ship. Prodding him lightly in the side with the handle of the Parasol, Neo’s expression morphed into one of confusion as the man lying on the ship deck didn’t respond to the contact.

 

Letting out a nervous laugh, the girl with the pink and brown hair nudged the man with her foot, rolling him onto his back.

 

Nausea rose up inside of her.

 

Roman’s skin was porcelain white, devoid of any pigment of healthy colour, his eyes wide open, staring straight ahead in what could only be described as fear, lips parted slightly to allow a thin trail of red to slip free from his mouth, snaking down his face.

 

Neo’s grip uncurled from her parasol as she saw the same shade of scarlet coating the end of it, and even more of it washed across her hands from where she had been holding the end of it.

 

The world around her seemed to freeze, the sound of her parasol handle clattering to the ground, echoing over and over again through her head in a droning metal clash.

 

Seven stab wounds, with no pattern or form to them, punctured Roman’s chest, blood slowly beginning to stain the pristine fabric of his coat.

 

Stab wounds from Neo’s own parasol.

 

Any bystander would have called the scene tragically beautiful, Roman, scarlet slowly staining the white of his face and clothes with vivid flecks of colour, Neo standing over him, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes, hair caught in the wind as the ship began to dip lower and lower in the sky, the two of them backlit by the flames reaching upwards into the night with burning hands.

 

_You Killed Him._

 

The blame crushed Neo to the ground.

 

Staggering over to where Roman lay, she threw her arms around him, lifting him slightly off the ground and began to sob heavily into his shoulder, her breaths heaving out of her lungs in choking gasps as the same words chanted over and over again inside of her mind.

 

_I’m sorry, Im sorry I’msorry imsorry imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry_

 

The words blurred together into a jumbled mess of blame and grief as Neo cursed herself over and over for her carelessness.

 

The ship lurched in the air and began to go down faster.

 

Neo knew that she could escape now if she wanted.

 

But she didn’t want to.

 

Her grip on Roman tightened as she felt the flames flickering closer towards her.

  
_If you’re going to go down, then I might as well go down with you._


End file.
